by Blake Pierce
Laura felt her whole body sag with relief as she realized the truth. Ed Bronston was not there. He was not going to be shooting Nate today.
But it was followed by a renewed wave of fear, hot on its heels. He wasn’t here. Which meant that he could be out there right now, already stalking his next victim. And they had no idea who that might be.
“Christ,” Laura gasped, holstering her gun and glancing back at Nate. “It’s empty.”
He was already digging his phone out of his pocket. “I’m calling the sheriff for backup,” he said. “We need to leave someone here, to guard the place in case he comes back.”
“He’s not coming back,” Laura said, shaking her head. “Not now. He’s too smart. He would have to expect that we’d find out who he is, and besides, with the noise we made, the neighbors will be talking. He won’t get within sight of the building without figuring out what’s going on and turning the other way.”
“I’m calling them anyway,” Nate told her. “We need the guards plus an APB with his photo. You try and find some clue about where he’s going next.”
Laura nodded. What Nate said made sense. It was likely that the killer would have left some kind of clue behind. Some trace of his intentions. He might have written something down somewhere, and if it wasn’t on his person, she would be able to find it.
There was too much planning that went into this for it to be all in the guy’s head. Or maybe that was just what she was telling herself to keep her hopes up. To keep the faith. She knew who it was, she knew his name and his face. She was a whisker away from getting proof.
So why did Laura feel as though the fourth victim was slipping out of her hands?
She started in the kitchen, rifling through drawers, checking every cupboard, every surface. There was a single battered cookbook, the pages stained and even charred in one place. She picked it up and shook it upside down, looking for anything loose that might fall out. That done, she turned her attention to the living room. She could hear Nate talking in the hall, hear him requesting all of the backup they might need to help run Ed Bronston down.
There was nothing on the coffee table, nothing on the floor around it. Laura turned up the seats of the sofa, and only found a giant slash across the bottom of one of them. She slipped her hands into the gap, trying to feel whether there was something shoved between the cushion and the case. When it turned up empty, she retreated and regrouped, heading for the bedroom.
The closet revealed only a few shabby items of clothing, most of them looking as though they had been through the wash a few too many times, faded and thin. The bed was unmade, the sheets rumpled. Laura grimaced to herself before lifting up each of the pillows and even searching under the mattress, grateful that she was wearing gloves to prevent herself from contaminating the evidence.
There was a wonky dresser by the bed, missing one foot. In all of the drawers Laura only found a few more items of clothing, several books, a comb, and a couple of other items of personal grooming. She rifled through each of the books one by one, making sure that there was nothing written in the margins or slipped inside.
Nothing.
By the time Nate was done with his call, she was still looking through the bathroom. There was nothing of any note whatsoever in the cramped space, and she backed out before the flickering light bulb overhead gave her a headache.
“Nothing,” she said, with a sigh. “It’s like he barely even lives here. He has nothing.”
“Came out of the psych ward, got dumped into this place, couldn’t afford to keep going.” Nate made a tsking sound with his tongue. “Makes sense he would get bitter about it. Angry, even. I wonder how long he’s been stewing on all of this.”
“Long enough to find out everything about me.” Laura wrapped her arms around herself, staring at the space where Ed Bronston made his home. There was nothing homely about it. She tried to imagine living here, and couldn’t. Not even at her lowest, when the alcohol had taken nearly everything from her. Even her own cramped apartment, filled with secondhand furniture, looked like a palace compared to this.
She had mementos. Belongings. Framed photographs and books and decorations, even if they were simple ones. Bronston had nothing.
She didn’t feel sorry for him. Not in the slightest. It was his own violent behavior that had brought him to this point. But she could see where Nate was coming from.
“We’re going to get him,” Nate said, with a firmness that was reassuring.
“But how? I mean, what now?” Laura asked. “We can’t just sit around and wait for the APB to catch him. He could slip past a dozen checkpoints and be out of town. He could be in someone’s house waiting for them already. We can’t just wait.”
“You’re right,” Nate told her. His hand swept backward over his close-cropped black hair, rubbing it thoughtfully. “We have to be proactive. We’ve got to try and figure out where he would be going next.”
“The next victim,” Laura said, nodding.
It seemed like an insurmountable task. But right now, it was the only direction they had left to turn.
They were going to have to try.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Laura sat in front of the computer, trying not to panic. Even the short wait for the deputies to arrive and take over, and then the drive back to the precinct, had been almost unbearable. Now she was starting to appreciate the sheer size of the task that lay ahead of them, and she was about ready to tear out her own hair.
“Well, at least we can be happy the census was taken not too long ago,” Nate said. He was tapping a pen against the side of the desk beside her, a noise that was just about driving Laura out of her mind.
“That doesn’t help a whole lot,” Laura mumbled. She was waiting for the results to finish loading. A search of the residential records of Albany for anyone with the first name Alex was, perhaps predictably, taking a long time.
“We have to narrow it down,” Nate said. “He’s only killed women before. You really think he’s going to go after a guy?”
Laura thought about it, then hesitated. “I guess it’s not uncommon for women to be called Alex, too. Maybe he hasn’t changed his MO.”
“So we can narrow it down to probably half, right?” Nate said, as Laura ticked a box on the screen and reloaded the results. This time they came back far quicker, but there were still pages and pages of them. “What else?”
Laura squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could force thoughts out of her brain. “I don’t know… um… they were all attacked alone.”
“Right, but they didn’t all live alone,” Nate said, tapping that pen again. Laura wanted to reach out and yank it out of his hand, but she didn’t want to risk their skin touching.
“Nate, please,” she said, gesturing to his hand.
Nate gave her a momentary and lopsided smile, dropping it. “Sorry.” He took a breath, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head. “Dammit, there’s still too many of them. How are we supposed to figure out which women are going to be alone tonight? It doesn’t even have to be all night—Paul Frost was on his way home.”
“And the child was still in the house,” Laura said. She had not forgotten that horrible image: the innocent child lying asleep upstairs while his mother was brutally murdered. If he had come down for a glass of water, what would the killer have done?
Nate let out a frustrated breath. He leaned back in his chair and read from their board. “He calls them first. He finds a woman who is alone and has the right name, and breaks into the house after she answers. Then he strangles her to death before leaving.”
“Add in the fact that phone records show the call going to Nadia’s cell phone, not her landline, and it doesn’t give us anything,” she said, but an idea was beginning to take hold. “Nothing except the way he likes to do things. What if we could stop his usual technique from working?”
“I’m listening,” Nate said.
“We have to warn them. Let them know that there’s someone going
around doing this. Tell them not to stay home alone.”
“All of them?” Nate gave her a sideways look, his eyes wide. “Laura, there are hundreds of people on this list. And that doesn’t even include anyone who might have just moved here.”
“And we have a whole station of deputies and receptionists and assistants, not to mention the media,” Laura said. “We’ve got to do this. We’ve got to warn them.”
She didn’t wait for Nate to agree with her. She knew he would, even if it took him a short while to think it over. They didn’t have a short while. They needed to get on this now. She headed for the door, straight down the hall toward the sheriff’s office.
Sure enough, he followed. He always had her back.
Except that someday soon, he would be dead. If she couldn’t stop it.
Laura pushed the thought away along with the roiling sickness that threatened to bubble out of her stomach. So many things she needed to concentrate on. So many people whom only she could save. She had to stay focused, had to remain on-task. Ed Bronston first.
***
Laura stood at the top of the bullpen ten minutes after she’d had the idea, watching ten members of staff seated at desks with their phones, calling through their own sections of the phone book to every single Alex they could find. Warning them not to go out alone, not to be at home alone, just in case. Telling them to go and stay with family or friends if they needed to. Warning them about not answering the phone if they didn’t know the number.
Laura listened anxiously in the bullpen as the first calls were made, making sure the deputies had all the details right. They couldn’t afford for this not to reach the people who needed to hear it.
“Hello, is that Alex Allen?”
“Hi, am I speaking with Alex Busch?”
“Yes, hello, I’m looking for Alex Carmine.”
She glanced up to the glass window at the back of the room. Sheriff Lonsdale was visible through it in his office, making calls to local news stations about an emergency press conference. Somewhere behind them, in another room, the dispatch team were working hard to recall every member of law enforcement they could from breaks and nights off, trying to get them back in to join in the effort.
“We should join them, at least until we hear anything different,” Nate said, casting around for a desk phone. Then he shook his head at himself and pulled out his cell. “Come on. We can start going through some of these batches that haven’t been assigned yet.”
“Wait,” Laura said, calling him back. Something was happening in her head. Not a vision: a thought. A realization. It was right on the tip of her tongue, something that she could almost grasp. “Why does he call them?”
“You know we haven’t figured that out yet,” Nate said. “Probably just to check that they’re home. Maybe he asks for someone else in the household, to make sure that they’re alone.”
“But Carrie lived alone,” Laura said. “And he wouldn’t need to make a call like that if he was watching them. Didn’t we work out that she was killed pretty soon after she got home from work?”
“Yeah,” Nate said, frowning. “I don’t know, then. Maybe it’s all part of it. Maybe he gets off on talking to them first.”
Laura shook her head. “It’s too significant,” she said, biting her fingernail. She spun in a circle slowly, thinking. She was visualizing the last moments of each of the women, the ritual the killer had to go through. Trying to see it from his side, not theirs. “There must be a reason why he has to talk to them first. He goes to all the trouble of getting the stolen phones, knowing that they might potentially be traced back to him if he isn’t careful enough. That’s the one piece of evidence we’ve had that went anywhere. It has to be significant enough to justify the risk.”
“Is it a risk?” Nate asked pointedly. “We still got no closer to figuring out who he was, even when we knew how he got the phones.”
“He’s right outside,” Laura said, almost to herself at this point. “He knows they’re in there. He waits for them to go in. Maybe… maybe for Nadia Frost, he waited until her son was in bed. He knew. So why call them? What else could he need to be sure of?”
“Their identity?” Nate suggested. “If he’s only seen their names written down, he won’t know what they look like in person. He might want to be sure.”
“Yes!” Laura clicked her fingers. “That’s it—it has to be. So where does he get their names? The first two—the first two, he called them on landlines. Home phone numbers.”
She looked down at the desks across the bullpen. Right now, each of them had a copy of the phone book, open to a new section. Surnames A through J were already in use.
A source that contained both names and phone numbers. A place where you could find anyone with the right name. Even easier if you were going for surnames, like Frost. A listing for everyone in the city, everyone who was registered.
This was it.
“He’s using the phone book, too,” Nate said, his voice echoing and confirming her own thoughts.
“The third victim, Nadia Frost, she was called on her cell,” Laura said, hastily grabbing her own and looking up a page she’d already visited earlier on. “But she had her own online store—yes, here it is! Her personal number is listed on the site, for potential customers to call. He must have found her in the phone book, then looked her up online and seen this.”
“That’s amazing,” Nate said, grinning. “We’re on his trail.” But his smile faltered as he looked out across the room, at the deputies who were only now starting their second calls. They were going to be at it all night. Even if they managed to call all of the women on the list before darkness fell—even if they got a press conference together in time—was it going to be enough?
Laura pushed her hair back from her face, grabbing a scrunchie out of her pocket and sweeping it back into place. “Let’s join them,” she said, decisively. The only thing they could do now was try.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
Laura bit the inside of her cheek as the phone rang and rang. Her fifth call, and just like the last two, it seemed like it was going to go unanswered.
“Hello?”
“Yes, hello!” Laura said, sitting up sharply. She’d all but given up hope of connecting, and for a moment she almost forgot what she had to say. “Is this Alex Vardy?”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Special Agent Laura Frost,” she said. “I’m calling to—”
“You can prove that?”
“Excuse me?” Laura stumbled, finding herself cut off in her mentally rehearsed speech.
“You got any way to prove you’re FBI?”
“I…” Laura paused. “Not right at this moment. But ma’am, no one is in trouble. I’m actually calling because we think that Alex Vardy could be in danger tonight. If that’s you, I just want to keep you safe.”
“There’s no Alex Vardy at this number,” the woman on the other end of the line said. “She moved out. Couple years back. No idea where she went.”
Laura opened her mouth for a follow-up question, but the line went dead.
She groaned with the horrifying realization that at least one of them was now out of reach. What if Alex Vardy was the Alex that Ed had chosen? Sure, he couldn’t call her at home, but what if he’d found her online like he did with Nadia Frost and discovered her new location?
She looked up to the windows that allowed light into the bullpen, and saw that they were now overpowered by the electric lights overhead. It was getting dark. He would be striking soon.
This Alex, whoever she was, was about to die. And even though several more bodies had joined them on the phones, it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough. There was no way they could get through all of them, not in time.
Laura thought about the grim reality setting in—the fact that she was probably about to find a fourth body, another woman who bore the name of one of her family members—and it took everything she had not to hurl the phone book at
the wall.
The book. That was a thought. Ed was using one of these. She knew him now, knew who she was looking for. She was getting so much closer—she had to be. If there was any time a vision would come, it had to be now. Right?
She glanced up surreptitiously, making sure that Nate was engrossed in a call. All across the bullpen, everyone was involved in their own journey through their section of the phone book, scanning pages or going over a hastily written script. At the far end of the room, the door to the sheriff’s private office was ajar, and through the window she could see him making his own calls. No one was paying any attention to her.
Now was her chance. She shut her eyes, flattening the palm of her hand against the phone book, hoping it would look as though she was just saving her place. She took a deep breath, tried to shut everything else out. Focused in on the feel of the book under her pages. The texture of the cheap, rough paper. The slight musty smell coming from it. The sharp tang of coffee in the air, and the generally stale aroma of a room that enclosed working law enforcement professionals for long shifts every day. She let it all filter through, the padding of the chair she was sitting on, the sharp edge of the desk drawers against the side of her leg.
Laura breathed deeply, letting all of her senses in one by one. If she couldn’t do this, Alex was going to die. Whoever Alex was. And then Nate. And—
Laura tried to start again, recentering herself. The rough pages. The musty smell. The chair. Come on, Laura. The sounds around her of voices, of tapping on phone buttons, of handsets jolted back into receivers. Words. We need you to stay safe tonight, is there anyone who can come and be with you? Or can you go anywhere? A clattering sound from somewhere across the room; Laura didn’t know what it was. Someone being clumsy. They were wasting time. They needed to concentrate—
Laura gasped, letting her eyes fly open. It was useless. No matter how hard she tried, she was too anxious, too on edge. Those intrusive thoughts kept coming, reminding her that she was responsible. That she was the only one right now who could save Alex, save Nate, save Amy, get better for Lacey. Ironically, it was that same anxiety taking over her mind that was stopping her from having the vision she needed to see this through.